by Alex Scarrow
Foster turned to look at the girls. ‘There’s nothing here. It’s gone. Allgone.’
CHAPTER 75
1957, New York
The museum worker led Bob and Liam down the steps.
‘So we store them down here,’ he spoke slowly, ‘along with all the othervaluable things due to be destroyed,’ he added, his voicebarely managing to conceal the bitter hatred he obviously felt towards the pair of them.
They followed him down the last few steps and into the basement where Liam could see endlesscrates and boxes stacked tidily across the floor, grouped in orderly categories, silentlyawaiting their turn to be carried out and tossed on to the bonfire outside.
Liam studied the man’s face and all of a sudden realized there was something familiarabout it. He was good with faces.
How can I possibly know him?
‘So.’ The worker looked up at them with an expression that told him he’dhappily stab them to death if he thought he could get away with it. ‘You need me foranything else?’
Bob dutifully faked not being able to understand him. It was Liam who was going to pretend tospeak barely passable English. ‘Ja. Ve are seeking…zerr visitorrs’ guest book.’
The worker’s eyebrows lifted curiously. ‘You want the guestbooks?’
‘Ja!Das ist corrrect.’
He shrugged. An odd request. He gestured for them to follow him.
He led the way along a passageway between shelves that ran from the floorto the ceiling. Twenty yards down, the worker stopped, pulled a short stepladder out of a nookand climbed it to the top.
‘They’re all kept up here,’ he said, patting a cardboard box.
‘Verry good,’ said Liam with a clipped, emotionless accent.
‘You want me to get them down for you?’ the man asked.
‘Ja. Get zzzem down.’
The man pulled out the box, unleashing a small shower of dust motes. ‘All in here,going all the way back to 1869. But…’ he added with contempt, ‘I supposethis’ll be going up in smoke along with everything else, I guess.’
Liam cocked his head. There was something about the worker’s voice too that was vaguelyfamiliar.
I’m sure I’ve met this fella before somewhere.
The young man placed the box on the ground and pulled out the top book, leather-bound withpages of thick cartridge paper, the handwriting of recent visitors scrawled across every page.Recent, that is… up until eight months ago when the invasion of east-coast America hadbegun.
‘The guest book,’ the man said, passing it over to Liam. ‘Every visitor isfree to sign it and write a message.’
Then it came to Liam, right then, where he’d seen the man before.
The security guard?
He looked once more at the young face of the worker, more closely this time — theheart-shaped mole emerging from his brow. This man looked to be in his mid-twenties. Thesecurity guard who’d spoken to him and Maddy, he must’ve been in his mid to latesixties. The worker standing before him was… related somehow.
Not related, fool.
The resemblance was unmistakable.
It’s the same man.
Liam felt an irrational urge to reach out and hug him. The man was a connection through time,a link to where they wanted to be. He could almost smell home… almost glimpse the worldback in 2001. It felt good.
‘Ah, sod it,’ Liam blurted, all of a sudden, ‘I’m no bloodyNazi.’
Bob cocked his head curiously and looked at him. The worker did likewise.
‘Neither of us are. I’m Irish, actually, and he… ’ He pointed at Bob.‘And he’s… well, he’s not German either.’
The worker’s expression remained frozen, perhaps suspicious that this was some kind ofa devious test.
‘Truth is, we’re from the future and we’re here to put history right.Aren’t we, Bob?’
Bob shrugged. ‘That is correct.’
Liam grinned. ‘I’ve actually met you in the year 2001. Guess what? You’restill working here. You’re a security guard, guarding these very books, so ithappens.’
The worker’s eyes narrowed. ‘I… I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t have to understand. I just wanted you to know that.’ Liamreached out and grasped the man’s arm. ‘I want you to know that we’re goingto make things right again. It’s all going to change and when it does it’ll belike this invasion never happened.’
The young man’s expression changed. ‘Hang on, are you fellas resistancefighters?’
Resistance fighters. It would make explaining things a lot easier than trying to convince himthey were time travellers. Liam nodded. ‘Yes… as it happens, that’s exactlywhat we are.’
‘Well, why the heck didn’t you say? The name’s Sam Penney!’
Liam held out a hand. ‘My name’s Liam.’
‘So what… uh… what were you sayin’ about meeting me before?’
‘Sorry, forget that… I was thinking of someone else. Now listen, can you helpus?’
‘Sure! Sure… anything I can do, anything at all I can — ’
‘Could you keep a watch on the stairs for me? Let me know if anyone’s comingdown?’
‘Sure.’
‘We’ll be just a few minutes here, Sam Penney. Then we’ll be gone again.Can you keep this a secret? Not tell anyone?’
‘Sure.’ The young man looked from Liam to Bob. ‘So what’re you fellasgonna do?’ His expression changed. ‘You’re not putting a bomb or anythinglike that down here, are you?’
‘No. Nothing like that. None of these precious things will be damaged. All right? Youhave my word, so you do.’
‘Oh… OK. So what are you — ?’
‘I can’t tell you that, Sam. All I can say is… that it’s part of thefight back, all right? You have to trust me on this.’
Penney gave it a scant moment’s thought, then nodded. ‘Guess that’s goodenough for me.’
‘So you keep watch at the top of the stairwell, all right? Give us a fewminutes.’
‘You got it.’
Liam watched the man walk back up the stairs, then he looked down at the open visitor’sbook in his hands. He turned to Bob. ‘So what do I write?’
‘They will need to know an exact geographical location. I will give you theco-ordinates down to a yard in accuracy. Also they will require a time-stamp: year, month,day, hour and minute.’
‘Right. And the other thing… How do we make sure they’re going to be able to find this book in over four decades’ time, you know, wheneverything’s about to be torched?’
Bob stared at him blankly. ‘I have no suggestions.’
CHAPTER 76
2001, New York
‘There’s nothing left,’ whispered Maddy, panning her torch aroundthe basement. Her voice was a weak, defeated croak. ‘I thought maybe… just maybe-’
‘There are a lot of shelves down here,’ said Foster. ‘We should spread outand check them all.’
‘They’re all empty, Foster! Don’t you see? Ifthat guest book was stored down here along with all the rest of the museum’s paperwork,then it was probably looted long ago, along with everything else. Maybe used as fuel for acampfire by the survivors, or those things outside.’
Foster’s face tensed as he looked around. ‘Liam’s a clever lad. He wouldhave made sure it was somewhere hidden, somewhere safe.’
‘Yeah? Where exactly? And how’re we going to find out where?’
‘A sign,’ whispered Sal.
The others turned to look at her standing outside in the stairwell on the bottom step.‘A sign,’ she said again.
‘You see a sign?’
‘No, I don’t see one, but that’s what he wouldhave done. If he came down here, he would have left us some sort of a sign.’ Her facelooked hopeful. ‘Wouldn’t he?’
Foster nodded. ‘She’s right. Some marker that would have survived this amount of time. Something permanent.’ He walked back into the stairwelland panned his torch around.
‘And right here somewhere, that’s where I’dleave a sign. Come on,’ he said, ‘everyone look.’
They did as he instructed, their torch beams snaking along the rough breeze-blocks of thestairwell walls, looking for something etched into the concrete, something scratched on thepiping running down the side, something carved into the wooden double doors leading on to thebasement floor. Something that might last forty-four years and never be completely erased.
‘Come on, Liam,’ whispered Foster, ‘if you’ve been down here, let usknow.’
They searched in silence for a few minutes, carefully sweeping their torches across thewalls, the stair handrail, heating pipes running up the side of the doorway, an electricaljunction box… even a fire extinguisher, still sitting on its wall mount, but…finding absolutely nothing.
Maddy sighed. ‘Maybe he left a sign but it was scrubbed off, or plastered over, or wornaway. It’s been a long time.’ She shook her head, frustrated. ‘Or maybe hedidn’t come back this way. And he and Bob stayed in theWashington area. Or…’ The words hung in the silence between them, unsaid.
Or maybe they just died back then.
Sal’s head dropped, her dark fringe flopping down over her eyes. ‘It was a wasteof time,’ she muttered. ‘We’re never going to find them.’
‘Maybe Sal’s right.’ Foster nodded. ‘We should probably think aboutheading back whilst it’s still light outside.’
Her dark eyebrows were locked with a frown as she gazed down at her feet.
‘We could always try again tomorrow morning as soon as the sun comesup,’ continued Foster. ‘We’ll have eight or nine hours of sunlight to lookaround down here. Actually, Liam may well have left us a clue upstairs in the main hall, for all we know. We’ll have more timetomorrow.’
Maddy reached out and patted Sal’s shoulder. ‘Hey, Sal, Foster’s right. Wecan try again tomorrow. Don’t cry, it was just a — ’
‘I’m not crying,’ she replied, shrugging off her hand and squatting quicklydown to the ground. She reached for the floor, her fingers splayed out in the dust, probing afaint groove in the concrete floor.
‘Sal?’
‘Give me your torch,’ she said to Maddy.
‘What is it?’
‘Just give me the torch!’ she snapped.
Maddy passed it to her and watched curiously as the young girl leaned closer to the ground,blowing the dry plaster dust away from the floor. She shone the torch at the small grooveetched into the concrete.
‘What is it?’
‘I think it’s letters… letters scratched into the floor.’ Peeringclosely, she tilted the torch’s beam so that it played obliquely across the faint, worngrooves, throwing them into much sharper relief.
Foster squatted down beside her. ‘What is it, Sal?’
‘An I and an H, it looks like.And I think it’s an… an arrow.’
Maddy dropped down beside them and studied the letters. Then she gasped. ‘That I is an L… see? The foot of theletter’s faint, but it’s there. Can you see it?’
‘My God, yes,’ said Foster.
Sal traced the second letter with her finger. ‘And that H,’ she said, ‘that could be…?’
Maddy grinned. ‘Yes, a B…I’ll be damned. It IS a B. L and B. Liam and Bob.’
‘That’s it!’ said Foster. He pulled himself tiredly to his feet, wincingwith the effort, but grinning like a schoolboy. ‘He’s been here! That means-’
‘He has left a message for us. Oh God, Liam!’ yelpedMaddy with joy. ‘You’re a star!’
Sal jumped to her feet, her face lit up like a jack-o-lantern. ‘They’re cominghome!’ she squealed with delight.
Foster nodded. ‘OK, then,’ he said, hushing them with his hand, ‘thearrow… He’s telling us to go in and we make a left turn.’
They stepped into the basement, turning left and seeing ahead of them a wall of rusting metalbrackets and empty shelves.
‘But there’s nothing on the shelves,’ said Maddy.
‘There’ll be another message somewhere,’ said Foster. ‘Check thefloor.’
Both girls on hands and knees swept aside the light silt on the floor around the entrance tothe basement, probing the ground with their fingers for any more distinct grooves. Fostermeanwhile ran his torch slowly up the breeze-block wall to the left of the double doors. Longago painted a joyless mint green, it was now flaking off in patches where a creeping damp hadseeped down from the museum above. His beam picked out a litany of scratches and gouges,endless decades of careless knocks by careless porters wheeling the museum’s heavyexhibits in and out of storage.
Come on, Liam. Talk to us.
The paint covered over some older acts of clumsiness, and was gouged away by newer ones. Butnone of these marks, Foster guessed, had happened in recent decades. Certainly not since theworld ended sometime in the past.
His finger ran over a faint curved groove, an indistinct and incompletecurve that might once have been part of a letter or a number. He traced the curve, dislodginga fine shower of dust, exposing more of it.
C.
Lightly blowing on the wall, more dust curled away in a light cloud, revealing a string ofwhat looked like…
Numbers.
‘I think I’ve got something!’
The girls clambered to their feet and a moment later were standing beside him, peeringclosely at the faint string of figures scratched into the concrete wall.
‘It looks like… a code of some sort.’
‘C… S… P, then a dash,’ said Sal. ‘Five, three, seven…then another dash… nine, eight, one, zero… then another dash and then five, seven,nine. What does it mean?’
Foster shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘We need to know,’ insisted Maddy. She stepped back from the wall, panning hertorch around. ‘If that’s Liam again, it’s got to mean something. Theanswer’s got to be something we can see as we’re standing here, right?’
‘That would make sense,’ replied Foster.
She walked a few yards along the wall, sweeping her torch along the empty shelves. ‘Butthere’s nothing here,’ she whispered under her breath, frustrated.‘Nothing.’
Her torch beam lanced up and down the rusting vertical support struts. And then came to reston a small square tag.
‘Wait a sec.’
She stepped forward, examining it more closely. A small metal frame, attached to the bracketwith screws that were now little more than flaking nubs of rust. Contained within the frame, ayellowed strip of damp-stained card, numbers, almost too faint to read, printed on it.
She flicked the torch along to the next vertical strut. Nothing. But theone after had another tag like this. She hurried over to it and found another curled vanillastrip of card with a fading sequence of numbers printed on it.
‘It’s their filing system!’ she called out. ‘Three letters, threenumbers, four numbers then three numbers.’
‘That’s right,’ said Foster, shining his torch on the wall.
Foster smiled. He’s telling us which shelf to find.
CHAPTER 77
2001, New York
It took them the better part of an hour to find it. There were quite a few tagswith numbers too faded to read, and others where the cardboard insert had long ago fallenout.
But two hundred yards down from the basement entrance, on the opposite wall, on a shelf thatrequired Maddy to climb up to reach, they found the correct tag.
And nothing else.
Maddy wiped dust and sweat from her forehead, and slumped against the metal support. Itcreaked and groaned softly, dislodging flakes of rust and motes of dust.
‘Nothing here,’ she called down to them. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘There must be something,’ said Sal. More a plea thana comment.
‘It’s bare. Somebody made a clean sweep a long time ago.’
The three sat in defeated silence for a moment, the coarse rasping of their breathing echoingdown the empty basement floor, accompani
ed by the sound of dripping water somewhere faroff.
‘We’ll be losing daylight soon,’ said Foster. ‘We’ve done whatwe can.’
‘I don’t want to be outside in the dark,’ whispered Sal.
‘Then I suggest we leave.’
Maddy nodded. ‘All right.’
She pulled herself up on to her feet and carefully swung one leg over theside of the wooden-slat shelf. She reached for the torch, casting a cone of light, thick withswirling, dancing motes of dust, towards the wall. As she did, she noticed within the circleof light on the wall, one particular block of concrete more clearly outlined than theothers.
No. Surely not.
‘Wait a moment,’ she said to the others, swinging her leg back on to the shelf.On all fours she crept carefully across the creaking slats of wood, mindful to place herweight where the metal support brackets passed underneath. She reached out for the block andoptimistically gave it a nudge. It shifted with a sharp gritty scrape that echoed loudly likethe lid of a stone sarcophagus shifting aside.
‘What have you found up there?’ asked Foster. He must have heard.
‘Would you believe it? There’s a loose breeze-block… I’m just…just going to pull it — ’
She eased it slowly out of the hole in the wall. Heavy, it slipped through her hands, landingon the shelf. She heard a wooden slat crack under its weight, and the entire metal framerattled and complained loudly.
‘Be careful, Maddy!’ said Sal.
‘I’m OK.’
Oh my God, this has to be it.
She ducked down, thrusting her torch towards the foot-wide hole in the wall, peering into theswirling dusty space beyond. It was a small space, just a cavity between walls littered withfossilized rat droppings and strung with webs. But nestling in the middle of it, unmistakable,was a large leather-bound book.
Oh my God.
Grimacing, she reached in and gently took hold of it, lifting it outthrough the hole in the wall. She wiped dust from her glasses and shone her torch down on theleather cover.